My name is Renee Jones and I'm a third year Journalism and PR student with my sights firmly set on the events/music industry. I have bright red hair and firmly believe in greeting everyone with a Cheshire Cat smile. As someone who tends to volunteer their time a lot and overcommit themselves, I was worried about surviving two jobs and completing the internship to the best of my ability. Just over the half way mark, I'm sure everyone will be glad to know that I think I'm doing pretty well.
This first post should have gone up months ago, but after some troubles with the interweb, this is the best I can do!
After a seemingly positive email in reply to my request for an internship, I ventured to Mt Lawley's famous Beaufort Street to visit JumpClimb - Music Management and Events. I didn't know what to expect, to be honest. I heard so many great things about the company's different events (Beaufort Street Festival, Aviary Rooftop Sessions) and had previously worked with one of their bands at other events (The Brow Horn Orchestra).
I walked into an office smaller than a Curtin University classroom with a various tables fitted together to create an island of table. Since I first met Directors Aaron and Fletch, I haven't looked back. The office has become a second home to me and the people I work with have become incredible contacts to have, particularly in a city where everyone knows everyone. If there is anything that my first weeks at JumpClimb reaffirmed for me, it is the old saying: "It's not just what you know, it's who you know".
During my interview, it was decided I would work as the Business Liaison for the Beaufort Street Festival - an event that attracts 100,000+ people to Beaufort Street for a day of music, arts, food and hopefully - fun and sunshine. My job is to liaise with the businesses and engage them with the Festival through registrations, window displays, street stalls and more. For a street as long and diverse as Beaufort Street (6km in length, with the Festival covering just over 1km of this street), this is a hard and time-consuming role.
Steering away from the traditional writing media releases and dealing just with social media all day, my job involves walking up and down Beaufort Street, talking to businesses about their likes and dislikes of the Festival, what they would like to see different and how they could get involved in the Festival in a creative capacity.
Unlike most offices my fellow PR interns are in, my office is very casual. For those interested, my daily outfit for the last few months has generally consisted of a nice dress and a blazer, or black pants with a musically-related shirt.
I look forward to telling you all about what I've learned in the last few months and updating you on the chaos that is currently the JumpClimb office in preparation for PrideFest and Beaufort Street Festival.
And for your enjoyment, here are some photos!
The first is of the office after we received our beautiful new wooden table:
This is a photo of the lightbox outside of the office on Beaufort Street:
Until next time, good luck and enjoy yourselves!
Renee x
3 comments:
Hi Renee,
I volunteered at the Beaufort Street Festival a couple of years back and had such an amazing time, you are definitely in for a treat!
I remember back to the day of the festival, with around 30 volunteers trying to pile into JumpClimb's tiny office on a 30+ degree day - it definitely wasn't ideal! However, I learnt so much about the industry as well as event planning and it was great to put to practice our university knowledge of event management including event plans, checklists, running schedules and more checklists!
There truly is a lot of hard work that goes into planning such an event like The Beaufort Street Festival and I'm sure you will thoroughly enjoy all the adventures in between the chaos.
I wish you the best of luck!
Rachel
Hi Renee
It sounds like you are thoroughly enjoying your placement and you are fitting right in!
I am currently doing my placement at the Starlight foundation and it seems we have a similar interpersonal communications strategy as you do - rather than resorting to press releases and social media we spend a large amount of time managing our corporate relationships (and establishing new ones) through one on one meetings (coffee for everyone!) and conversational phone calls getting our key messaging out there whilst ensuring a personal relationship with each of our partners rather than the corporate formalities.
What I was wondering was what has the response been like to you wandering up and down Beaufort Street and talking to the businesses? Is it ever awkward and are you ever met with any apprehension when trying to get people on board or is it more of an engagement strategy with your stakeholders that are already on board?
At Starlight we have had a mixed response to this engagement strategy as some partners still prefer the old fashioned communication strategies of formal letters and events so i'm curious as to your experience!
Good luck for the rest of the placement!
Steph
Hi Steph,
Thanks, and you too!
As the Festival is a community-based event and much of our support comes from local community (City of Vincent, Stirling and soon-to-be, Perth), it is definitely important to be all over the community engagement and corporate relationships we have.
Another reason we are so focused on this is because WE ARE one of the Beaufort Street Businesses! So if we have a problem with community engagement, it makes it very hard to work on the street with the wonderful other businesses - we walk past these people, we buy our lunch, dinner and coffee from these people and we rely on their support for the Festival to go ahead.
I suppose it is easy in a sense, as many of the businesses know of our business and know the Festival - some are even on the Network who overlook the whole Festival itself. So it's keeping up a friendly working relationship with these businesess, really.
Some of the businesses are new, so it does take a little time and explaining to get them to a comfortable level. Some of the businesses also have mixed feelings about past Festivals, so that can be a difficult venture.
I hope that helps. I hope to hear a little more about your internship too! Good luck with everything.
Kindest regards,
Renee
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